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Onion Pickle

A pickled onion dish preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Lay the onions in salt overnight.

  2. Scald the onions in sweet milk.

  3. Carefully skin the onions.

Pickle and spice

  1. Boil the onions in good cider vinegar with pepper and white mustard seed.

  2. Cover the onions with cider vinegar.

  3. Add mace, red pepper, white mustard, sugar, and ground cinnamon.

  4. Put the spices in a muslin bag.

  5. Boil the spices in the vinegar.

  6. When cold, pour the vinegar over the onions.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Small white onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and absorbing the spiced vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavor that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Carefully skin the onions. Onions bruise and tear easily when scalded and handled; damaged layers can break apart and cloud the brine, so gentle handling keeps the onions whole and intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, coffee):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, coffee. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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